Books: Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.

S >> Sarah Tytler >> Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.

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At half-past eight her Majesty's carriage was announced. The weather was
unpleasant, the streets were unusually dirty, but a vast crowd once more
greeted her. On arriving at the end of Cheapside, she was hailed out of the
glimmering illumination and foggy lamplight by "God Save the Queen," again
sung by many hundred voices, accompanied by a band of wind instruments, the
performance of the Harmonic Society, and the music was followed all the way
by enthusiastic cheering. The Baroness Bunsen remarked of such a scene long
afterwards, "I was at a loss to conceive how any woman's sides can 'bear
the beating of so strong a throb' as must attend the consciousness of being
the object of all that excitement, and the centre of attraction for all
those eyes. But the Queen has royal strength of nerve." Not so much
strength of nerve, we should say, as strength of single-heartedness and
simple sense of duty which are their own reward, together with the
comparative immunity produced by long habit.

Still it is a little relief to turn from so much State and strain to a
brief glimpse of the girl-Queen in something like the privacy of domestic
life. In the month of November, 1837, the Attorney-General, Lord Campbell,
with his wife, Lady Stratheden, received an invitation to Buckingham
Palace, to dine with her Majesty at seven, and one of the guests wrote thus
of the entertainment: "I went, and found it exceedingly agreeable, although
by no means so grand as dining at Tarvit with Mrs. Rigg. The little Queen
was exceedingly kind to me, and said she had heard from the Duchess of
Gloucester that I had the most beautiful children in the world. She asked
me how many we had, and when she heard _seven_, seemed rather
appalled, considering this a number which she would never be able to reach.
She seems in perfect health, and is as merry and playful as a kitten."

Amongst the other innumerable engagements which engrossed every moment of
the Queen from the time of her accession, she had been called on to sit for
her portrait to many eager artists--among them Hayter and Sir David Wilkie.
The last has recorded his impression of her in his manly, unaffected,
half-homely words. "Having been accustomed to see the Queen from a child,
my reception had a little the air of that of an early acquaintance. She is
eminently beautiful, her features nicely formed, her skin smooth, her hair
worn close to her face in a most simple way, glossy and clean-looking. Her
manner, though trained to act the Sovereign, is yet simple and natural. She
has all the decision, thought, and self-possession of a queen of older
years, has all the buoyancy of youth, and from the smile to the
unrestrained laugh, is a perfect child. While I was there she was sitting
to Pistrucci for her coin, and to Hayter for a picture for King Leopold."

The mention of the coin recalls the "image and superscription" on the gold,
silver, and copper that passes through our hands daily, which we almost
forget to identify with the likeness of the young Queen. About this time
also commenced the royal patronage of Landseer, which resulted later in
many a family group, in which numerous four-footed favourites had their
place. At the exhibition of Landseer's works after his death, the sight of
these groups recalled to elderly men and women who had been his early
neighbours, the days when a goodly cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, with
their grooms, on horseback, used to sweep past the windows, and the word
went that the young Queen was honouring the painter by a visit to his
studio.

On the 20th of November the Queen went in State to the House of Lords to
open Parliament for the first time, with as great a crowd of members and
strangers present as had flocked to witness the prorogation in July. In the
course of the month of December the bills were passed which fixed the
Queen's income at three hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds a year, and
further raised the Duchess of Kent's annuity from twenty-two thousand,
which it had been latterly, to thirty thousand a year. On the 23rd of
December the Queen went to give her assent to the bills, and thank her
Parliament personally, according to old custom on such an occasion. On
presenting the bill the Speaker observed that it had been framed in "a
liberal and confiding spirit." The Queen simply bowed her acknowledgement.

Lord Melbourne, "with the tears in his eyes," told Lord Campbell that in
one of his first interviews with the Queen she had said to him, "My
father's debts must be paid." Accordingly the late Duke of Kent's debts
were paid by his daughter, in the name of herself and her mother, in the
first year of Queen Victoria's reign. In the second year she discharged the
debts which the Duchess of Kent had incurred in meeting the innumerable
heavy calls made upon her, not only as the widow of one of the Royal Dukes,
but as the mother of the future Sovereign.

The summer of 1838 was gay with the preparations for the Queen's
coronation. All classes took the greatest interest in it, so that splenetic
people pronounced the nation "coronation mad." Long before the event
coronation medals were being struck, coronation songs and hymns written,
coronation ribands woven. Every ingenious method by which the world could
commemorate the joyful season was put in practice. The sentiment was not
confined to the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. "Foreigners of various
conditions, and from all quarters of Europe, flocked in to behold the
inauguration of the maiden monarch of the British Empire. In the Metropolis
for some weeks anterior to the event the excitement was extreme. The
thousand equipages which thronged the streets, the plumed retainers of the
ambassadors, the streams of swarthy strangers, and the incessant din of
preparation, which resounded by night as well as by day, along the intended
line of the procession, constituted by themselves a scene of no ordinary
animation and interest, and sustained the public mind in an unceasing
stretch of expectation."

Some disappointment was experienced on the knowledge that the ancient
custom of a royal banquet in Westminster Hall on the coronation day was to
be dispensed with. But the loss was compensated by a procession--a
modification of the old street pageant--on the occasion.

On the morning of the 28th of June the weather was not promising. It was
cold for the season, and some rain fell; but the shower ceased, and the day
proved fresh and bright, with sunshine gilding the darkest cloud. The Tower
artillery awoke the heaviest City sleepers. It is needless to say a great
concourse, in every variety of vehicle and on foot, streamed from east to
west through the "gravelled" streets, lined with soldiers and policemen,
before the barriers were put up. "The earth was alive with men," wrote an
enthusiastic spectator; "the habitations in the line of march cast forth
their occupants to the balconies or the house-tops; the windows were lifted
out of their frames, and the asylum of private life, that sanctuary which
our countrymen guard with such traditional jealousy, was on this occasion
made accessible to the gaze of the entire world."

At ten o'clock the Queen left Buckingham Palace in the State coach, to the
music of the National Anthem and a salute of guns, and passed beneath the
Royal Standard hoisted on the marble arch. A marked feature of the
procession was the magnificent carriages and escorts of the foreign
ambassadors: the splendid uniform of the German Jagers delighted the
populace. A deeper and subtler feeling was produced by the sight of one of
Napoleon's marshals, Soult, Wellington's great adversary, rearing his white
head in a coach the framework of which had belonged to the State carriage
of the Prince de Conde, and figured in the _beaux jours_ of Louis XVI.
The consciousness that this worthy foe had come to do honour to the young
Queen awoke a generous response from the crowd. Soult was cheered lustily
along the whole route, and in the Abbey itself, so that he returned to
France not only full of personal gratification at the welcome he had
received, but strongly convinced of the goodwill of John Bull to Frenchmen
in general. How the balls of destiny roll! Soult feted in London, Ney dead
by a traitor's death, filling his nameless grave in Pere la Chaise. The
procession, beginning with trumpeters and Life Guards, wound its way in
relays of foreign ambassadors, members of the royal family and their
suites--the Duchess of Kent first--the band of the Household Brigade, the
Queen's bargemaster and her forty-eight watermen--honorary servants for
many a day--twelve carriages with her Majesty's suite, a squadron of Life
Guards, equerries, gentlemen riders and military officials, the royal
huntsmen, yeomen-prickers, and foresters, six of her Majesty's horses, with
rich trappings, each horse led by two grooms; the Knight-Marshal,
marshalmen, Yeomen of the Guard, the State coach--drawn by eight
cream-coloured horses, attended by a Yeoman of the Guard at each wheel, and
two footmen at each door--the Gold Stick, Viscount Combermere, and the
Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, the Earl of Ilchester, riding on either
side. In the coach sat the Queen, the Mistress of the Robes (the Duchess of
Sutherland), the Master of the Horse (the Earl of Albemarle), and the
Captain-General of the Royal Archers (the Duke of Buccleugh). The whole was
wound up by a squadron of Life Guards. In this order of stately march,
under the June sky, emerging from the green avenues of the park, the
procession turned up Constitution Hill, traversed Piccadilly, St. James's
Street, Pall Mall, Cockspur Street, and by Charing Cross, Whitehall, and
Parliament Street, reached the west door of Westminster Abbey--

Where royal heads receive the sacred gold.

At the Abbey door, at half-past eleven, the Queen was received by the great
officers of State, the noblemen bearing the regalia, the bishops carrying
the patina, the chalice, and the Bible. Her Majesty proceeded to the
robing-room, and there was a hush of expectation in the thronged interior,
where the great persons who were to play a part in the ceremony and the
privileged ticket-holders had been waiting patiently for long hours.

Underneath the galleries and below the platform were ranged lines of Foot
Guards. The platform (under the central tower) was the most conspicuous
object. It was covered with cloth of gold, and bore the chair of homage, or
throne, facing the altar. Farther on, within the altar-rails, was "St.
Edward's Chair," or the chair decorated by "William the Painter" for
Edward. Enclosed within it is the "Stone of Destiny," or Fatal Stone of
Scone--a sandy stone, supposed to have formed the pillow on which Jacob
slept at Bethel, and long used in the coronation of the Scotch kings. In
this chair all the kings of England, since the time of Edward I., have been
crowned. The altar was covered with massive gold plate.

The galleries of the Abbey were arranged for the members of the House of
Commons, the foreign ambassadors, the judges, Knights of the Bath, members
of the Corporation, &c. &c. The floor of the transepts was occupied by
benches for the peers and peeresses, who may be said to be in their glory
at a coronation; the space behind them was for the ticket-holders.

Harriet Martineau has preserved some of the splendours and "humours" of the
coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional
caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June
morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three.
As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have
awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid came to dress me she
said numbers of ladies were already hurrying to the Abbey. I saw the grey
old Abbey from the window as I dressed, and thought what would have gone
forward within it before the sun set upon it. My mother had laid out her
pearl ornaments for me. The feeling was very strange of dressing in crape,
blonde, and pearls at five in the morning.... The sight of the rapidly
filling Abbey was enough to go for. The stone architecture contrasted
finely with the gay colours of the multitude. From my high seat I commanded
the whole north transept, the area with the throne, and many portions of
galleries, and the balconies which were called the vaultings. Except a mere
sprinkling of oddities, everybody was in full dress. In the whole
assemblage I counted six bonnets. The scarlet of the military officers
mixed in well, and the groups of the clergy were dignified; but to an
unaccustomed eye the prevalence of Court dresses had a curious effect. I
was perpetually taking whole groups of gentlemen for Quakers till I
recollected myself. The Earl-Marshal's assistants, called Gold Sticks,
looked well from above, lightly fluttering about in white breeches, silk
stockings, blue laced frocks, and white sashes. The throne--an arm-chair
with a round back, covered, as was its footstool, with cloth of gold--stood
on an elevation of four steps in the centre of the area. The first peeress
took her seat in the north transept opposite, at a quarter before seven,
and three of the bishops came next. From that time the peers and their
ladies arrived faster and faster. Each peeress was conducted by two Gold
Sticks, one of whom handed her to her seat, and the other bore and arranged
her train on her lap, and saw that her coronet, footstool, and book were
comfortably placed. I never saw anywhere so remarkable a contrast between
youth and age as in these noble ladies." Miss Martineau proceeds to remark
in the strongest and plainest terms on the unbecoming effect of full dress,
with "hair drawn to the top of the head, to allow the putting on of the
coronet" on these venerable matrons. She goes on to express her admiration
of a later generation of peeresses. "The younger were as lovely as the aged
were haggard.... About nine the first gleams of the sun slanted into the
Abbey and presently travelled down to the peeresses. I had never before
seen the full effect of diamonds. As the light travelled each peeress shone
like a rainbow. The brightness, vastness, and dreamy magnificence of the
scene produced a strange effect of exhaustion and sleepiness.... The great
guns told when the Queen had set forth, and there was renewed animation.
The Gold Sticks flitted about, there was tuning in the orchestra, and the
foreign ambassadors and their suites arrived in quick succession. Prince
Esterhazy crossing a bar of sunshine was the most prodigious rainbow of
all. He was covered with diamonds and pearls, and as he dangled his hat it
cast a dancing radiance all round.

"At half-past eleven the guns told that the Queen had arrived, but as there
was much to be done in the robing-room, there was a long pause before she
appeared."

A little after twelve the grand procession of the day entered the choir.
The Prebendaries and Dean of Westminster and Officers-at-Arms, the
Comptroller, Treasurer, Vice-Chamberlain, and Lord Steward of her Majesty's
Household, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord President, the Lord Chancellor of
Ireland, came first. When these gentlemen were peers their coronets were
carried by pages. The Treasurer bore the crimson bag with the medals; the
Vice-Chancellor was attended by an officer from the Jewel Office,
conveying, on a cushion, the ruby ring and the sword for the offering. Then
followed the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Armagh, with the Lord
Chancellor, each archbishop in his rochet, with his cap in his hand; the
princesses of the blood royal, all in "robes of estate" of purple velvet
and wearing circlets of gold; the Duchess of Cambridge, her train borne by
Lady Caroline Campbell and a gentleman of her household, her coronet by
Viscount Villiers; the Duchess of Kent, her train borne by Lady Flora
Hastings, and her coronet by Viscount Morpeth; the Duchess of Gloucester,
her train borne by Lady Caroline Legge, and her coronet by Viscount Evelyn.
(The royal generation next that of George III. was fast dwindling away when
these three ladies represented the six daughters and the wives of six of
the sons of the old King and Queen. But there were other survivors, though
they were not present to-day. The Queen-dowager; Princess Augusta, an aged
woman of seventy; Princess Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, nearly
as old, and absent in Germany; the Queen as well as the King of Hanover,
who had figured formerly as Duke and Duchess of Cumberland; and Princess
Sophia, who was ten years younger than Princess Augusta, and resident in
England, but who was an invalid.) The regalia came next, St. Edward's
staff, borne by the Duke of Roxburgh, the golden spurs borne by Lord Byron,
the sceptre with the cross borne by the Duke of Cleveland, the third sword
borne by the Marquis of Westminster, Curtana borne by the Duke of
Devonshire, the second sword borne by the Duke of Sutherland, each
nobleman's coronet carried by a page, Black Rod and Deputy-Garter walking
before Lord Willoughby d'Eresby, Lord Great Chamberlain of England, with
page and coronet.

The princes of the blood royal were reduced to two. The Duke of Cambridge,
in his robe of estate, carrying his baton as Field-Marshal, his coronet
borne by the Marquis of Granby, his train by Sir William Gomm; the Duke of
Sussex, his coronet carried by Viscount Anson, his train by the Honourable
Edward Gore.

The High Constable of Ireland, the Duke of Leinster; the High Constable of
Scotland, the Earl of Errol, with their pages and coronets. The
Earl-Marshal of England, the Duke of Norfolk, with his staff, attended by
two pages; the sword of State, borne by Viscount Melbourne, with his page
and coronet; the Lord High Constable of England, the Duke of Wellington,
with his staff and baton as Field-Marshal, attended by two pages. The
sceptre with the dove, borne by the Duke of Richmond, page and coronet; St.
Edward's crown, borne by the Lord High Steward, the Duke of Hamilton,
attended by two pages; the orb, borne by the Duke of Somerset, page and
coronet. The patina, borne by the Bishop of Bangor; the Bible, borne by the
Bishop of Winchester; the chalice, borne by the Bishop of London.

At last the Queen entered, walking between the Bishops of Bath and Wells
and Durham, with Gentlemen-at-Arms on each side. She was now a royal maiden
of nineteen, with a fair, pleasant face, a slight figure, rather small in
stature, but showing a queenly carriage, especially in the pose of the
throat and head. She wore a royal robe of crimson velvet furred with ermine
and bordered with gold lace. She had on the collars of her orders. Like the
other princesses, she wore a gold circlet on her head. Her train was borne
by eight "beautiful young ladies," as Sir David Wilkie called them, all
dressed alike, some of them destined to officiate again as the Queen's
bridesmaids, when the loveliness of the group attracted general attention
and admiration. These noble damsels were Lady Adelaide Paget, Lady Fanny
Cowper, Lady Anne Wentworth Fitzwilliam, Lady Mary Grimston, Lady Caroline
Gordon Lennox, Lady Mary Talbot, Lady Catherine Stanhope, Lady Louisa
Jenkinson. The Ladies of her Majesty's Household came next in order, the
Duchess of Sutherland, the Mistress of the Robes, walking first, followed
by Lady Lansdowne as first Lady of the Bed-chamber. Other ladies of the
Bed-chamber, whose names were long familiar in association with that of the
Queen, included Ladies Charlemont, Lyttelton, Portman, Tavistock, Mulgrave,
and Barham. The Maids of Honour bore names once equally well known in the
_Court Circular_, while the office brought with it visions of old
historic Maids prominent in Court gossip, and revealed to this day
possibilities of sprightliness reined in by Court etiquette, and innocent
little scrapes condoned by royal graciousness and kindness. The Maids of
Honour at the Queen's coronation were the Honourable Misses Margaret
Dillon, Cavendish, Lister, Spring Rice, Harriet Pitt, Caroline Cocks,
Matilda Paget, and Murray. One has heard and read less of the Women of the
Bed-chamber, noble ladies also, no doubt, but by the time the superb
procession reached them, with the gathering up of the whole in Goldsticks,
Captains of the Royal Archers, of the Yeomen of the Guard, of the
Gentlemen-at-Arms, though pages and coronets still abounded, the strained
attention could take in no more accessories, but was fain to return to the
principal figure in the pageant, and dwell with all eyes on her.

"The Queen looked extremely well, and had an animated countenance." The
scene within the choir on her entrance was so gorgeous, that, it is said,
even the Turkish Ambassador, accustomed we should say to gorgeousness,
stopped short in astonishment. As the Queen advanced slowly toward the
centre of the choir, she was received with hearty plaudits, everybody
rising, the anthem, "I was glad," sung by the musicians, ringing through
the Abbey. "At the close of the anthem, the Westminster boys (who occupied
seats at the extremity of the lower galleries on the northern and southern
sides of the choir) chanted _Vivat Victoria Regina._ The Queen moved
towards a chair placed midway between the chair of homage and the altar, on
the carpeted space before described, which is called the theatre." Here she
knelt down on a faldstool set for her before her chair, and used some
private prayers. She then took her seat in the chair and the ceremonial
proceeded.

First came "the Recognition" by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who advanced
to the Queen, accompanied by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chamberlain, the
Lord High Constable, and the Earl-Marshal, preceded by the Deputy-Garter,
and repeated these words: "Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Victoria,
the undoubted Queen of this realm, wherefore all you who are come this day
to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?" Then burst forth the
universal cry from the portion of her Majesty's subjects present, "God save
Queen Victoria." The Archbishop, turning to the north, south, and west
sides of the Abbey, repeated, "God save Queen Victoria," the Queen turning
at the same time in the same direction.

"The Bishops who bore the patina, Bible, and chalice in the procession,
placed the same on the altar. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops
who were to read the Litany put on their copes. The Queen, attended by the
Bishops of Durham and Bath and Wells, and the Dean of Westminster, with the
great officers of State and noblemen bearing the regalia, advanced to the
altar, and, kneeling upon the crimson velvet cushion, made her first
offering, being a pall or altar-cloth of gold, which was delivered by an
officer of the Wardrobe to the Lord Chamberlain, by his lordship to the
Lord Great Chamberlain, and by him to the Queen, who delivered it to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, by whom it was placed on the altar. The Treasurer
of the Household then delivered an ingot of gold, of one pound weight, to
the Lord Great Chamberlain, who having presented the same to the Queen, her
Majesty delivered it to the Archbishop, by whom it was put into the
oblation basin.

"The Archbishop delivered a prayer in the prescribed form. The regalia were
laid on the altar by the Archbishop. The great officers of State, except
the Lord Chamberlain, retired to their respective places, and the Bishops
of Worcester and St. David's read the Litany. Then followed the Communion
service, read by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Rochester
and Carlisle. The Bishop of London preached the sermon from the following
text, in the Second Book of Chronicles, chapter xxxiv. verse 31: 'And the
king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after
the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his
statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words
of the covenant which are written in this book.'

"In the course of his sermon from this text, the Bishop praised the late
king for his unfeigned religion, and exhorted his youthful successor to
follow in his footsteps. At the conclusion of the sermon 'the oath' was
administered to the Queen by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The form of
swearing was as follows: The Archbishop put certain questions, which the
Queen answered in the affirmative, relative to the maintenance of the law
and the established religion; and then her Majesty, with the Lord
Chamberlain and other officers, the sword of State being carried before
her, went to the altar, and laying her right hand upon the Gospels in the
Bible carried in the procession, and now brought to her by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, said, kneeling:

"'The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep. So
help me God.'

"The Queen kissed the book and signed a transcript of the oath presented to
her by the Archbishop. She then kneeled upon her faldstool, and the choir
sang '_Veni, Creator, Spiritus._'

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